This Girl

There once was this girl, and everyone loved her.

She wasn’t all that pretty, or the most popular, or the one everyone asked advice from, but she still had their love. Perhaps it was in the way she talked, the way nothing on her mind was left unsaid. Maybe it was the way everyone felt they could be totally honest with her and she would accept it all for what it was.

She didn’t know. Every night, when the street lights were on and the stars shone, she stared and wondered why things were the way they were. Never had it occurred to her that she had the power to change whatever came her way. She always saw things for what they were now.

Stuffed inside the corner of her mind, this girl found a place to hide. A place where the world worked exactly as she wanted, when she wanted. A place where she was finally the star that everyone could love for a true reason.

Even though she hid in this world whenever she could, reality still claimed her and her mind. A place slowly darkening, she wanted nothing to do with it, but had no choice. She kept it all inside, making sure that the world still loved her.

As time came and passed, she realized she could not survive on the world’s acceptance alone. She’d always known that there was one, just one out there who could truly accept and love her, both in reality and the world she built herself. Someone that wouldn’t mind that she wasn’t the prettiest, most popular, or the one everyone wanted to talk to. A person who could see her for her.

That one was thought to be found. Two worlds they shared, and it seemed like they could remain together. In too little time, their worlds clashed, and her heart was shattered. Her mind overtook her, scaring her senseless. The fact that she wasn’t anything the world could see ‘special’, even though they all loved her, drove her into madness. Everything reminded her of the things they had faced in reality. It was too little time.

Slowly, everyone could see that there was more to her than met the eye. The love stopped, the concern grew. She couldn’t stand how she knew there was only one who could understand her world, but they had all but vanished. Her special place to hide became a nightmare she couldn’t leave. It drove her insane: the tears, the harm, the pain, the point of no return.

Sitting on a bare patch of grass, she stared up at the stars and wondered why everything was the way it was. She could have, but did nothing to change it. She made a final promise to herself that, someday, the world could understand and love her for what she was.

There once was this girl, and everyone loved her...until she wasn’t.